Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) on Tuesday deferred by six days the verdict in a case against eight policemen accused of crimes against humanity for the killing of six people during the violent student-led protests of 2024.
Justice Golam Mortuza Mozumder, chairman of the three-judge panel, said that they were sorry and that the verdict had not been prepared, adding that the judgment in the case would now be pronounced on January 26.
The tribunal had earlier fixed January 20 for delivering the verdict against former Dhaka Police Commissioner Habibur Rahman, former Joint Commissioner Sudip Kumar Chakraborty and six others. Four of the accused, including the two senior officers, were tried in absentia.
The 2024 protests, known as the ‘July Uprising,’ led to the fall of then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. On November 17, Hasina and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal were sentenced to death after being tried in absentia on similar charges of crimes against humanity.
Trials of several ministers from the previous government and leaders of Hasina’s now-disbanded Awami League are currently underway before the ICT-BD.
Meanwhile, tribunal chief prosecutor Tajul Islam said the interim government of Muhammad Yunus has decided not to renew the contract of international criminal law expert Toby Cadman as a “special adviser” to the prosecution team, amid reports that the British lawyer had resigned.
Islam clarified that Cadman had neither resigned nor stepped down, but had approached the Law Ministry to inquire whether the interim government intended to renew his contract, which expired on November 19. “There is no question of resignation or stepping down,” Islam told reporters.
British freelance journalist and rights activist David Bergman said in a Facebook post on Monday that Cadman had informed him that his contract ended in November and that he had declined an offer for an extension. “My contract expired in November and I was offered an extension, but I decided not to extend it. It would not be appropriate to comment on the reasons,” Bergman quoted Cadman as saying.
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Cadman is the joint head of London-based law firm Guernica 37. He had earlier worked on Bangladesh’s ICT-BD trials in Dhaka in 2011 as an adviser to the defence team, when the previous government was conducting trials of collaborators of Pakistani forces during the 1971 Liberation War.
